Story Thieves Read online

  For just a moment irritation passed over Mr. Porterhouse’s face. “You haven’t . . . none of them?” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. The ending is what’s important. The Magister . . . he’s not a hero. At the end of the final book, Dr. Verity tells Kiel that the Magister planned on using the Source of Magic to destroy Quanterium, just like Dr. Verity wants to destroy Magisteria. They’re both villains.” He ran his hands through his hair nervously, his eyes flickering to the ceiling and back to Bethany. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? That man up there is crazy, and willing to wipe out a planet full of his enemies. We have to get out of here, right now !”

  “What?” Bethany whispered as loudly as she dared. “You authors and your stupid twists! Look at what you’ve done!”

  “I didn’t know he was real!” Mr. Porterhouse hissed back.

  “So he’s just going to kill us?” She sat back in a daze, fear and confusion fighting each other in her head.

  “I don’t know!” Mr. Porterhouse whispered. “He’s off book, so he could do anything at this point. All I know is what he was capable of in the story. And that was to destroy an entire world to make sure his people were safe.”

  “Yup, he’s going to kill us,” Bethany said with a short nod, then shook off her confusion and fear, at least enough to think. “Okay. We can’t stay here—”

  “Oh, really? We can’t ?”

  She glared at the author. “Is there any way out of here other than the stairs? Since those lead back up to the crazy magician man?”

  Mr. Porterhouse shook his head. “Not even a window. I don’t like the glare when I watch movies on the big screen.”

  Perfect. At least there wouldn’t be a glare when the Magister came down to blow them up or whatever. “How about a book? Anything at all down here?”

  “Everything’s upstairs in the library. I doubt there’s so much as a piece of paper down here.”

  Bethany glanced around, growling quietly to herself in frustration. Mr. Porterhouse wasn’t wrong. Not only were there no books of any kind, there wasn’t much of anything. Just the chairs, the movie screen, and the movie projector in the back, connected to a computer. Great, everything was digital. That didn’t help when your weird book powers didn’t work on a computer screen.

  She just about gave up, then noticed a white booklet on the desk next to the projector.

  Instruction manual. Hmm.

  What would happen if she wrote something on paper, just even a simple sentence like The monkey hated the elephant with a passion, and the elephant knew why ? Would she be able to jump into that paper? Was that enough of a story? Or did she even need a story?

  She slowly, quietly, walked over to the manual, flipped it to a blank sheet at the back, then quickly looked around for a pen or something. As she was rummaging through the desk, the Magister materialized out of nothing, with an unhappy-looking Kiel Gnomenfoot at his side. Bethany froze, dropping her hands immediately to her side to hide the paper. Back in the chair, Mr. Porterhouse straightened himself up, his eyes wide with fright.

  “I believe you have had enough time to think,” the Magister said. “Have you come to the right decision?”

  “Please—” Mr. Porterhouse started to say, only to have his mouth erased off his face once more. The Magister gave him a careful look, then turned back to Bethany, waiting for her answer.

  Bethany quietly folded the manual over so the blank page was facing up, then slipped it into her back pocket, trying to look like she was thinking things over. “Yes, I have,” she said, then slowly, very slowly, began to walk back over to where the Magister stood over Mr. Porterhouse.

  There was no way this would work. No way. Not only had she never jumped into a blank page before, there was no reason to even think it might work. There wasn’t a story there, after all. No fictional world to enter, just a bunch of blank nothing. Not only would it not work, and not only would it be humiliating when it didn’t, but the whole thing was probably just going to make the Magister even more angry.

  Still. Between humiliation and a crazy magician, she’d take humiliation.

  She stopped next to Mr. Porterhouse and took a deep breath.

  “You will help me free the fictional from their stories, then?” the Magister asked.

  “Um,” Bethany said, “no.” Then she grabbed the author’s hand and shoved the blank instruction manual directly at him.

  Half of her expected his hand to rip right through the page, that there was no way this could work, and why even attempt something so risky, so dangerous?

  But weirdly, the other half of her was actually excited to see what might happen. And that must have been the half that made her grin out of nowhere as everything turned a brilliant bright white all around her and the author.

  They were in empty space! The blank page was just that: There wasn’t anything here, but somehow, she could still jump into it. She almost laughed. It’d worked! How cool was that?

  Any laugh immediately died in her throat when she noticed Mr. Porterhouse’s death grip on her hand, staring at her with pretty much the same terrified look he’d given the Magister.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “You’re okay. I got you out. You’re safe now.” His eyes said he didn’t necessarily believe her, but she didn’t really have time to convince him. “We’re going to be trapped in here if he burns that booklet, so I need to get back out. But don’t worry, I’ll come back for you. I just need to get the Magister and Kiel back into your books before they do anything crazy. So stay here, okay? I’ll be right back.” She paused. “And just so you know, this is all a kid named Owen’s fault. You’ll probably hear about him when he messes up your entire series of books. Don’t worry, I’ll get him back too.”

  Before he could stop her, she leaped out of the page and back into the movie theater, ready to grab the blank sheet of paper and run as fast as she could up the stairs. It wasn’t much of a plan, but then again, the blank sheet hadn’t been either, and that had worked. So maybe she had luck on her side for once?

  She didn’t. As soon as her feet hit the basement floor, a glow hit her full in the face. Magic raced into her mouth and down her throat, infecting her lungs, which immediately froze up. She gasped, making a rasping noise in her throat. She couldn’t breathe!

  As Bethany gasped for air, the Magister lifted his hand, sending her floating up above the marble floor. She clutched her neck, desperately trying to pull in oxygen.

  “What are you doing?” Kiel shouted from somewhere below her. “Don’t hurt her!”

  “You have forced my hand, Bethany,” the Magister told her. “Why can’t you see how wrong these stories are? Especially considering your heritage? If you won’t help me, then you dishonor your father and your abilities. Far better for me to use that power, if you refuse to.”

  The same cold, shivery feeling Bethany had felt when she first met the Magister coursed through her, and she knew that he was pulling her book-jumping power straight out of her, but that seemed less and less important as the sides of her vision started turning dark from lack of air, and she slowly began to black out.

  CHAPTER 18

  Owen woke up to find Alphonse, Kiel’s winged cat, asleep on the Magister’s spell book at his side. Silvery metal covered the floor, ceiling, walls, and every spot not taken up by a computer monitor or futuristic-looking chair.

  “Excuse me,” he said to Alphonse as he sat up. The cat gave him a dirty look, then closed his eyes again. Right beside the cat were some blackened marks, like the spell book had gotten singed in the magical explosion. Whoops. Owen frowned and rubbed at one of the spots, but it didn’t come off.

  Where was he exactly, anyway? He started to stand up, only to have the floor jump out from under him, slamming him into the wall. Just as quickly, the floor leaped in the opposite direction. “What is going on here?” Owen shouted at the floor. “Stop moving!”

  “THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT,” the floor yelled at him. Or, a speaker in
the floor, probably. “GET UP HERE ALREADY!”

  Up here? Owen gasped, grinning like an idiot. They were on the Scientific Method, Charm’s spaceship! But how had they gotten here? And why was everything so shaky?

  He pushed the winged cat off the spell book, then grabbed it to take it with him. The spell book seemed to pull away from him in an odd way, but he ignored that and made for the door, which whooshed open automatically, like on Star Trek, or less impressively, like at the library.

  The ship pitched forward, sending Owen stumbling through the door and out into the nerve center of the ship. There he found Charm seated at the pilot’s controls, frantically running her hands over transparent boxes of light hanging in midair in front of her.

  That part was pretty cool, but what made Owen stop breathing for a second was the wall just past Charm. The Scientific Method ’s viewscreen wrapped around almost half of the room, and from what Owen could see, it looked like they’d jumped out of Kiel Gnomenfoot and into Star Wars. More ships than he could count surrounded a green, yellow, and red planet, while laser blasts exploded on all sides.

  “We won’t live through this,” Charm said without looking at him, “but if we do, I’m going to kill you anyway.”

  “That seems . . . harsh,” Owen told her, unable to take his eyes off the screen. “What’s going on?”

  “Right now? Lasers,” Charm said, a bit unnecessarily as the ship dove forward, sending Owen falling straight at her. At the last minute, her robotic arm lashed out and caught Owen’s cloak right before he slammed into the viewscreen. “Also, your spell destroyed the Magister’s tower, along with a whole transport full of Science Soldiers.”

  Owen grinned. “Really? How many are in a transport?”

  “You’ll probably get to count up close in a few minutes,” she told him, tossing him back into the room. “If I hadn’t teleported us back to the ship right after you cast that spell, we’d both be buried underneath an entire tower full of rubble, if not disintegrated. But besides that, do you know what happens when a transport of Science Soldiers gets blown up on Magisteria?”

  “Everyone cheers?” Owen said.

  “You really are stupid enough to be Verity’s clone, aren’t you?” She hit a button, and Dr. Verity’s image appeared on the viewscreen.

  “Citizens of Quanterium,” Dr. Verity said, standing in front of white columns. A blue flag with the image of a rocket ship taking off from a planet, Quanterium’s flag, flapped in the wind at his side. “I come to you tonight to report that a Magisterian ship has broken our blockade and destroyed a Science Soldier transport. This is in no uncertain terms an act of war and must be addressed as such.” He shook his head sadly. “I want peace as much as the rest of you, but the safety of Quanterium is my utmost concern, and I will not allow these magic-using criminals to do any more harm.

  “I am officially declaring war on Magisteria. Our armies of Science Soldiers are on the move and will attack each Magisterian city within the next twenty-four hours. If the Magisterians truly wish peace, as they’ve claimed, then they will surrender and turn their criminals over to Science Police at once.

  “This is a dark day for Quanterium, but I believe in our planet, our people, and our science. Together, we will overcome any who would reject the natural laws of the universe. May factual discourse guide you all.”

  The ship banked hard to the left as Dr. Verity’s image disappeared, and Owen barely held on to a chair. “Wow,” he said. “That escalated quickly.”

  “You seem to have that effect on people,” Charm said. “So now Verity’s Science Soldiers from all those alternate dimensions where we found the Fourth Key are heading here to destroy Magisteria. His infinite robots outnumber the not-infinite Magisterians by . . . let’s say an infinite amount. Usually that’s a bad sign in war. You probably weren’t taught math, though, so I understand why this is new to you.”

  “Ah, it’ll be fine,” Owen said, waving a hand. “That’s why we’re here. He said we have twenty-four hours. That’s plenty of time!” And it would be. After all, this was the last book, and everything was going to end well, so what’s the worst that could happen? The planet wasn’t actually going to get attacked. This was just Jonathan Porterhouse raising the stakes, giving them a time limit so everything seemed more exciting!

  Charm gave him a strange look, then turned back to the controls. “I can’t open a wormhole while we’re under attack.” She jammed the controls to the left, and a laser blast blew past them, right where they’d just been. “And the longer we’re out here, the more ships will arrive. So when we do get blown up, I hope you somehow go first.”

  “I’ll handle it,” Owen told her, and set the spell book down on the floor. Again, it seemed to pull away from his touch, which was weird. He didn’t remember it ever doing that with Kiel.

  “No!” Charm shouted. “No more magic! We barely lived through the last time.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a baby,” Owen told her. “We made it out okay, didn’t we?” He touched the singed part of the book again, then shrugged. “But if it makes you feel better, I’ll use something less explosive.”

  “Kiel Gnomenfoot, if your spell harms even one metal plate on my ship, I will eject you into the nearest sun. Over and over.”

  Owen ran his hand over the book, thinking, Give me a spell that will keep these ships from seeing us. That’d do it, right?

  The magic filled him again, but this time it felt less warm and friendly, and more . . . not. He shrugged, then immediately cast the spell, using his magic wands to aim the magic right at the ship. “Invisibility, coming up!” he told Charm.

  “What?” she said as the entire ship disappeared, leaving Owen, the spell book, and Charm all floating on what looked to be nothing. Charm gasped and frantically felt around for the controls. “THIS IS YOUR PLAN?” she shouted. “To make all my computers and sensors disappear? Whose side are you on?”

  The Scientific Method began to slow down as Charm threw her hands out, searching for the controls. Her hand hit something invisible, and the ship tilted left, just in time to save them from a laser that passed by.

  Unfortunately, now that Owen could see what surrounded them, he realized that one laser wasn’t their problem.

  “That’s a lot of ships,” he said, pointing at the fifteen or so Science Soldier fighters that were flying right at them.

  “I’m glad you finally noticed!” Charm shouted. “Now could you let me see what I’m doing so they don’t shoot us to death?”

  Owen immediately reversed the spell, and the Scientific Method faded back into view just in time for one of the laser blasts to slam into the ship.

  Everything went sideways, and the wall nearest Owen exploded in flames and smoke. Foam shot from the ceiling to put the fire out as alarms blared throughout the ship. “We just lost half our life support!” Charm shouted. “One more hit and we’re done. I need to open a wormhole, now!”

  “I got this!” Owen shouted, and turned back to the spell book. Give me something good, you stupid book! A spell that will actually stop those other ships!

  This time there wasn’t even a cold, less friendly energy. This time the book didn’t even open to a page. It just sat there, and weirdly, Owen got the feeling that it was glaring at him.

  “Are you kidding me?” he said to the book, fear filling his stomach. “Give me a spell!”

  The book didn’t move.

  “Well, they’re locking on with their laser missiles,” Charm said. “Now seems like a good time to tell you how I’ve hated you from the moment we met.”

  Owen glanced over his shoulder at her, then turned back to the book, breathing way too quickly. “Okay, I’m sorry! I’m sorry I got you burned, I’m sorry I called you stupid. Just please help us now, or we’re all gonna get blown up!”

  For a second, nothing happened. Then the book opened, and a cold, chilling energy filled Owen. He immediately let the spell out, not even caring what it did, and the spell book sl
ammed shut, right on his hand.

  “Ow!” he shouted, but the book just ground his hand harder.

  “The Science Soldier ships . . . they’re slowing down!” Charm said from the pilot’s seat. “What did you do?”

  Owen stood up, the spell book still holding his hand hostage. “I, uh, took them down. Hard.” He tried to shake off the book as he stepped over to the viewscreen, just as curious as Charm was about what he’d done.

  The attacking ships seemed to have changed color, glowing golden in the light of the nearby sun. Other than that, there didn’t seem to be anything different about them.

  “Obviously, I made them all, uh, gold now,” Owen said, faking some Kiel Gnomenfoot arrogance, but inwardly, having no idea what had just happened. Gold? Why would the spell book have given him that spell?

  “That’s actually impressive,” Charm said, raising her eyebrows in surprise. “Gold doesn’t conduct electricity, which means you took out all of their systems and computers in one shot. And even if they could move, their engines would melt right through the ship. I might almost call that . . . clever.”

  “Well, it’s all in a day’s work for Kiel Gnomenfoot,” Owen said, winking at her.

  She stared at him for a second, then turned back to the controls. “Opening a wormhole. We’ll be safe in a second. Then we can repair the life-support systems and get a move on.”

  Something large and multicolored ripped into existence in the middle of the nothingness right in front of them and sucked the ship right in. The ship stretched out, pulling every fiber of Owen until he wanted to scream, then let go, snapping him back like a rubber band as it spit them back out. They emerged from the other side of the wormhole into a nothingness that looked an awful lot like the one they’d just left, only this nothingness had no planets or attacking ships.

  “It’ll take them a while to follow us,” Charm said, standing up from the pilot’s seat. “Repairs are going, so we should have a little time.”

  “You don’t need to thank me,” Owen told her, grinning. Why had he been afraid, again? Of course they’d be fine. The book was written, and obviously Kiel made it to the end!